Unashamed (12 page)

"Yeah, me too. Damn, you scared me. I totally fell asleep.” I twisted a bit to face her in case there was more she needed to say, but, frankly, I was tired.

“Emma. Kiss me.”

I twisted my back tighter as I tried to whisper as loudly as I could without waking her daughter. “What? No.” Before I could say any more, she leaned in to kiss me. Her hair was wet and I was overwhelmed with the smell of shampoo as strands of her dark locks fell onto my face.

She pulled away, saying, “Come to the bathroom.” As she stood up, she gently tugged at my arm.

“No, your kid is going to wake up. What about Tim? Didn't you say he doesn’t want an Arizona repeat?”

“He had to work early. He’s gone. We are alone. Come to the bathroom. I want you.”

“Kay, I am going to bed. You are fucking nuts.” I rolled over to face the wall. “Go to bed, Kay.” I pulled my arm free and tucked it to my chest.

She grabbed my shoulder and twisted me toward her. “Please,” she begged.

“God dammit,” I said as I flipped the covers off and let her guide me to the bathroom in nothing but a towel, which dropped to the floor the moment it was shut. “This is so wrong,” I said moments before I fucked her right where she stood.

How quick it was. Rather than sex, it felt like a feverish race to see who could fingerbang the other first. The experience was lustful, even with sensual kisses that tasted like toothpaste and blood from a recent tooth extraction.

Of our rekindled night of passion, it’s sad that the taste of dental work is more prominent than what actually happened. But, I said it once and I’ll say it again: “It’s the before and after we all sit on the edge of our seats for.” The climatic part wasn’t the sex; it was the ring she gave me the next morning before I drove home. Kay dramatically pulled me into the bedroom and put a plain gold band in my hand and curled my fingers around it.

“I want you to have this. It was my grandmother’s, but I want you to have it because I love you and I want you to think of me every time you wear it. It will be like you are mine and I am yours. Our little secret, okay?”

I tried to explain that I couldn’t accept such a gift. After she insisted, my hand reluctantly held firm as she slid it on my finger. I left her place feeling extremely awkward on my long journey home.

It was a two-hour drive on the German Autobahn. Plenty of time to think about Kay and the ring she gave me. I glanced at it on my finger, twisted it around with my thumb, tried to shine it against my shirt, and finally took it off for a while. Silver is my passion, so the gold felt wrong to wear.

After tossing it into the cup holder of Doug’s immaculate car, the ring scraped from side to side around each curve of the road. It made me feel guilty, so I pushed it back on my finger. How could she possibly love me? The meaning in her words seemed far too profound for a girl she barely knew and slept with twice. Was she a woman obsessed? I cared for her but certainly did not love her.

Rationalizing these things in my mind, I pitied her.

Chapter 9

After arriving home, the ring disappeared into a pocket in my jewelry box. The meaning and special moment were lost forever because feelings for Kay were not shared. My heart belonged to Doug. My marriage and my life continued to be the most wonderful relationship in existence.

My sex life, however, was beginning to be something of a constant compromise. Douglas was bothered by the fact that we only had sex once a week, and he became very vocal about it. “This isn’t normal. I need more snatch, woman!” Sadly, this was his chief complaint. So, in order to make things right, we joked at the dinner table about it and bartered for quality pussy time.

“I don't know. Why don’t you kiss me or
something,
Doug? You can’t just say
get naked
and expect me to be turned on, ya fucker. Jesus, why don’t
you
take my clothes off?” I laughed, then shoveled a pile of food into my mouth.

“Listen, woman, you give me twenty minutes. I ain’t got time to fuck around with your bras and buckles and shit.” He leaned back against his chair and sipped ice water as he referred to my stipulation, which came about years earlier after many marathon sex sessions.

My complaint was that it took too long and was actually uncomfortable, not to mention painful, when he stuck it in without being fully aroused. This in itself was a problem because I didn’t get exceptionally wet to begin with. At some point, when he asked for sex, I started tapping my left wrist where a watch would be worn to let him know that the clock was ticking. On more than one occasion, I explained that if he couldn’t do what he had to in twenty minutes, something was wrong and my vagina would shrivel up and fall out if he kept pounding away without lubrication. This stipulation worked for Doug. He took it seriously and maintained the lube drawer, which was always well stocked.

Seventy-five percent of our foreplay went quite literally like this:

“Hey, baby. Do you want to do it?”

Then I would say yes or no, depending on what was cooking on the stove and if it could cook unattended or not. If the answer was yes, he would say, “Okay, baby, get naked.” Then I’d tap my wrist and he would go running for the K-Y Jelly. He would put a little on me, put a little on himself, and shove it in. Badda-boom, badda-bing, intercourse was over, and I could either masturbate to get off or stir my Spanish rice that was probably boiling over.

Since his principal complaint was about the amount of sex we had, we questioned how much sex was considered normal for an average married couple without kids. We couldn’t ask our neighbors. They were apparently worse than rabbits in breeding season. And we really didn’t want to know how many times the neighbors’ fat military housewives sucked their husband’s cocks on a weekly basis.

He just wanted more sex from his wife, whom he was in love with; was that too much to ask? It wasn’t like he was a beast! Doug was a good-looking fellow with big brown eyes, thick Spanish hair that was always well groomed, and the cutest dimples when he smiled. The thing is, if more sex was the biggest problem we faced as a couple, we were doing pretty well.

At the end of 2000, while watching television, I saw a commercial recruiting soldiers for the Army Soldier Show. The show consisted of selected soldiers placed on temporary duty to entertain troops across the United States, including one overseas assignment.

Soldiers auditioned for a spot in the show and would also be trained as their own technicians and roadies if they made the cut. Some say it’s a soldier spin-off of the Bob Hope USO tours he used to do for the troops in Vietnam. The soldier show motto was, “Entertainment for the soldiers, by the soldiers.” High school drama club and summer teen theater had nothing on the fifteen minutes of fame that the soldier show offered. It was bigger, more elaborate, required extensive planning, and had a healthy budget.

The tour was eight months long, so a person who wanted to do the show would have to get permission from their unit before they could audition. I spoke with Ed about my desire to do the show, and he agreed to support me with my potentially achievable dream. After gathering all of the necessary paperwork, I sent it to the entertainment installation along with a video of a karaoke performance and my letter of release. Two months later, I flew to the United States for the official audition.

There were a lot of talented people during the weeklong process. One of whom was a girl named Natalia. She had long, straight brown hair, and stood about two inches taller than me with flawless skin. Her choice of clothing was always on the risqué side with small touches of white trash influences that you couldn’t quite pinpoint but knew they were there.

We began our friendship over the uncanny similarities of our mothers. We joked about leading parallel lives as our childhood stories continued to practically mirror each other. Natalia and I shared the same adventures with our mothers’ inability to get out of the welfare system and out of the bars. I was hardly surprised to learn that she was the elder sibling of a sister the same age as mine, whom she too had affectionately nicknamed Bean. Our friendship was instant, to say the least.

Another common ground was our powerful voices and love of the craft. She claimed to have been the lead singer in a punk band and wanted to take it further. We blew the crowd out of the water when we sang our chosen songs. Natalia and I received the same compliments, and both of us made it into the 2001 Army Soldier Show.

Rehearsals were grueling. Seven in the morning to seven at night would have been a luxury. Our hours varied. The sixteen soldiers who made the cut rotated through voice lessons, choreography, setup, costume fittings, and constant changes to the production. Everyone had assigned places to be throughout the day for maximum efficiency. It was the most organized mess of my military career.

The songs chosen for each soldier were selected by assessing the soldier’s vocal range ability and stage presence. They were then assimilated into groups or sections intermingled with dance numbers and comedy to create a ninety-minute variety show. It had to have an aesthetic flow and be kid friendly and entertaining for teenagers, family members, soldiers of all branches, parents, retirees, and veterans. The entertainment branch had big shoes to fill. The directors worked endlessly to give everyone stage time and maintain the integrity of the show, but numbers were thrown out for a number of reasons. I worked hard to memorize a new dance routine when the order of songs changed, even though it was impossible for me to dance and then come back onstage with a complete costume switch for the next number. Needless to say, this was one of many numbers my name was cut from.

Everyone was affected by the constant rearranging. The wardrobe lady, Miss Sue, purchased material and worked nights to make eleven shirts that were worn twice during rehearsals and thrown out. The directors never told us why, but Miss Sue bluntly explained, “You American girls have big hips and flabby arms! Director Vic say you arms too fat in shirt and he say we no have money to buy girdles.” Miss Sue pointed to me and continued, “And why you get that tattoo on you arm? You tattoo is like, POW, look at me . . . I’m a tattoo on arm. And you little! How you have big hips when you look like chopstick?” Traditional Japanese ballads played on a crappy little cassette player she had set within a nook by the sewing machine.

I was utterly shocked by her candor because I had never heard her say much before, let alone cut us down. “Dang, Miss Sue, that is so bold,” I said as she moved me out of the way so another thicker girl could be measured and pinned.

“Well, Miss Sue no have fat arms to hide.” She tugged at the soldier’s shirt. She stopped to look up with a pin hanging from her mouth. “You no eat today. You give it to Chopsticks over there, okay?” The girl’s mouth hit the floor as mine did, but we didn’t say anything.

Everyone adapted to change, even Miss Sue, with much dismay. Eventually, a production began to form from nothing. We were constantly told that the show would develop from us, but we didn’t understand what that meant until a show was pieced together in two months with no theme or direction, just raw talent. The third month was finalized with dress rehearsals as we learned how to set up and tear down the stage. We became our own roadies and had the privilege of learning from professional lighting technicians, audio guys, and prop masters in “The Biz.”

Natalia and I used to joke that “Madonna ain’t got shit on us” because she had others do all her hard work. During those first three months, we were practically inseparable. On one of my rare phone calls back to Germany, I told Doug all about her.

“She is so pretty and you should hear her sing! She said if she were to sleep with anyone in the show, it would be me or this other dude, but he is a total queen! I don’t know how she can’t see that! He is so fucking obvious, but she is head over heels for him. I don’t get it.”

“So, do you think you will get to bang her?” Doug asked.

“God, you are so vulgar . . . but I sure am going to try,” I said, my voice turning sinister.

Always the pervert, he replied, “That’s my girl. Do you think she will want to do me or a threesome?”

“I don’t know. Gross, I’m not trying to pick up girls to bring home for you. Get your own ho.”

“You can’t hook a brotha up?”

“Gross. Get your own. I got to go practice, but I love you, honey. I’ll call back in a few days.”

“Okay, how much do you love me?” He waited for the familiar answer we shared in our three-and-a-half-year marriage.

“Theez much,” I exaggerated.

“Do you miss me?”

I didn’t think before I answered him. With much regret I said, “No. I mean, honey, I am busy from the time I wake up to the time I get home. Then, I practice on my own before I go to bed. I don’t have time to miss you! I’m just on the go all day long.”

Doug was silent at my unexpected honesty. I tried to lessen the hurt I had caused, but it only made the dig worse. “I mean, I miss you, of course, but I’m glad I don’t have time to think about it or I would be miserable, you know?”

“Yeah, well I miss you…a lot.” His saddened tone was heartbreaking. I had made a huge mistake.

“I’m sorry,” I added, but it was too late; the damage was done.

“I know you have a lot going on, but I miss you and I love you,” my loyal husband confessed. We talked about the scheduled shows and made plans for Doug to watch a performance at the Arizona venue, our old stomping ground. We ended the call on a much lighter note with words of love and a few shared giggles.

A few weeks later, our opening night filled every seat in the theatre. Nearly every show thereafter packed the house. The entire Soldier Show cast, including technicians, traveled on buses to each venue across the states. These long trips afforded Natalia and me plenty of time to bond.

My subtle hints to show interest in more than friendship were not exactly received. I did little things like open doors, buy gifts, inconvenience myself for her sake, and dote over her every move. Armed with knowledge of her one-time lesbian experience, I took things extremely slow. My intent was not to scare her away. When I openly expressed my feelings once, she brushed it off as if it were a joke, but she let me flirt a little and continued hanging out with me. When we finally had time off at selected venues, we dined in sushi restaurants to relax. This became our tradition and my wonderful excuse to spend quality alone time with her. We started calling our little excursions “dates” and sometimes extended them with shopping or a movie. On a few occasions we held hands. Each outing ended with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. For Natalia, we were really good friends. For me, we were hiding a budding connection. This behavior had been consistent since the beginning. It was only a matter of time before someone made the first move. Unfortunately for me, Natalia was completely shit-faced during our first kiss.

It all started with a plan to visit the local mall in the next city near our venue at Fort Carson, Colorado. Gordon, one of the cast members, acquired a rental car and asked Natalia to accompany him. His obvious plan was to get Natalia alone, but she requested my company. Gordon was not happy about the idea of a trio; however, if he wanted time with her, it had to include yours truly.

He picked us up near our rooms, and the three of us drove to the local mall in a town outside of the military installation. We shopped until our stomachs cried out for the food we smelled permeating from an upper scale restaurant attached to the mall. The three of us ate on the back patio nestled perfectly in the mountains. We had a wonderful time laughing and drinking the evening away until we realized the servers were folding chairs in preparation to close.

Giddy from dinner drinks, we decided we should visit a local bar to finish out our fantastic evening. A club would have been more my scene, but I was willing to try something new. They were ecstatic about my willingness but disappointed with my clothing.

Natalia pinched at my shorts and pulled the fabric out to wave it back and forth. “Girl, you cannot go into the bar with those shorts on. You look like a skinny person who used to be fat. The top is cute, but the shorts should be shredded.” She giggled and flapped the material some more so Gordon could see what she was talking about.

Gordon asked, “Did you buy anything at the mall to put on? The shorts are too big,” He was trying to be polite about it.